The Gorilla Radio archive can be found at: www.Gorilla-Radio.com. G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in State and Corporate media. Gorilla Radio airs live Thursdays between 11-12 noon Pacific Time. Airing in Victoria at 101.9FM, and featured on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca and www.pacificfreepress.com. And check out Pacific Free Press on Twitter @Paciffreepress

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin is attempting to position himself as a champion of the downtrodden. Martin talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.

He put on quite a show at the United Nations 2005 World Summit.

"Canada cannot conceive of a world succeeding without the United Nations," said Martin. "But, make no mistake, the UN needs reform." He claims to support a reformed United Nations. Cuban president Fidel Castro also talks of a reformed United Nations. Are Martin and Castro on the same page? I don’t think so. Martin‘s "reforms" will do little or nothing to support the world’s oppressed. Castro’s vision is to completely transform the planet under a better arrangement for the down pressed.

While Canada did put boots on the ground in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, Cuba also offered to help the American people. However, the American government refused Cuba’s helping hand. Spokespersons for US imperialism love to use the fact that Cuba interfered in the internal affairs of Angola in the 1970s and ‘80s. But the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the dominant group in the struggle for Angolan independence and the democratically elected government from Portugal, had invited the Cubans to help them fight off an invasion from Apartheid South Africa. What the average citizen does not realize is that the US also asked for and received military assistance from France, the Netherlands, Spain, Haiti and others, during its war for national independence.

A new book, Canada In Haiti: Waging War On The Poor Majority by Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton opposes Prime Minister Martin on the question of Haiti. Fenton is a Vancouver-based independent investigative journalist, radio correspondent, and activist, who traveled to Haiti one month after the coup that removed former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power. Montreal-based Engler, who is also author of Playing Left-Wing - From Rat to Student Radical, is an activist who traveled to Haiti in December 2004. Canada, France and the United States are all in bed in Haiti.

Engler and Fenton spoke at a public forum and book launch at Osie and discussed the growing support in Canada for the people of Haiti against the Canadian, U.S., French, and Brazilian occupation. The meeting was packed. Canada In Haiti exposes Canadian government and business responsibility for anti-Aristide coup against democracy. The chapter "Responsibility to Protect or A Made in Ottawa Coup?" points out the coup against Aristide was actually planned on Canadian soil.

From January 31-February 1, 2003, Canada’s Secretary of State for Latin America and La Francophonie, Denis Paradis, played host to a high-level roundtable meeting dubbed "The Ottawa Initiative on Haiti." Surprise, surprise, no representative of Haiti’s elected government was invited. However, Otto Reich, then President George W. Bush’s appointee as Assistant Secretary State for the Western Hemisphere, was in attendance.

Paradis leaked the fact that this meeting took place to journalist Michael Vastel, who reported the meeting in the March 15, 2003 edition of L'Actualite magazine.

Another chapter, "Using NGOs to Destroy Democracy and the Canadian Military Connection" exposes the shameful role played by many Canadian NGOs:

"Imagine a plan to provide Canadians their education, healthcare, water, and welfare through private foreign-government-funded charities, corporations and wealthy individuals. That may help us to visualize the Canadian NGO role in Haiti."

Engler and Fenton note that "without exception, documents obtained from CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) reveal that organizations ideologically opposed to Lavalas (Aristide’s party) were the sole recipients of Canadian government funding. Civil society groups supportive of Lavalas simply did not receive development money."

Many have said NGO stands for "Nothing Going On." However, a lot is going on in Haiti, the world’s first African republic. During a November 2004 visit to Haiti, Prime Minister Martin famously declared, "there are no political prisoners in Haiti." Annette Auguste, popularly known as So Anne, the folk artist and supporter of exiled president Aristide, herself behind bars, begs to disagree:

"If I am not freed there are political prisoners in Haiti. If former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and former interior minister J. Privert are not freed there are political prisoners in Haiti. If all the prisoners in Haiti who have been arrested merely for their affiliation with Lavalas are not freed, there are political prisoners in Haiti."

So Anne was arrested on Mother’s Day 2004 in a military raid in which 20 US marines invaded her home "without a warrant using plastic explosives. They killed her two dogs and cuffed and hooded members of her family, including four minors under the age of 15." The pretext for the arrest was "information that she was stockpiling weapons in her home and planned to attack US interests in Haiti." No evidence was offered. So Anne is still in prison despite calls for her release.

There is a growing global movement in solidarity with Haiti. On July 21, protests against the July 6 massacre were mounted in 13 U.S. cities, five Canadian cities, in Paris, and in Brazil. Many of the demonstrations targeted embassies or consulates of Brazil because of that country’s role as leader of the military component of the UN occupation force.

Africans at home and abroad must come to the defense of the Haitian people. Haiti’s revolution led the way for Africans and the oppressed, worldwide. Frederick Douglass, a firm believer in the Haitian Revolution, delivered a Speech on Haiti at the World's Fair January 2, 1893 and was clear on Haiti’s role in the freedom of Black Americans. Said Douglas, "We should not forget that the freedom you and I enjoy today," he said, "is largely due to the brave stand taken by the black sons of Haiti ninety years ago…striking for their freedom, they struck for the freedom of every black man in the world."

Toronto-based journalist and radio producer Norman (Otis) Richmond can be heard on Diasporic Music, Thursdays, 8 p.m.-10 p.m., Saturday Morning Live, Saturdays, 10 a.m.-1 p. m. and From a Different Perspective, Sundays, 6-6:30 p.m. on CKLN-FM 88.1 and on the internet at www.ckln.fm. He can be reached by e-mail norman@ckln.fm.

Beyond the botched break-in of the Democrat's election HQ by Nixon's so-called "plumbers," one of the most troubling facts to come out of the subsequent 'Watergate' investigations was the existence of an "official enemies list" compiled by the administration with the aid of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Now, the Beltway broadsheet, Capitol Hill Blue is reporting the Bush administration too has an enemies list, one dwarfing Tricky Dick's, and again the FBI is implicated.

According to the paper, Bush's list contains the names and incriminating details on more than 10,000 subjects deemed hostile to the administration, and even those believed critical of Bush during his tenure as governor of Texas. More worrisome than the existence of such a list is the misuse by Bush insiders of the so-called "Patriot Act" to investigate those disagreeing with administration policies.

The list includes information on members of Congress, local, state and federal officials and many media figures and ordinary citizens who have had the temerity to question Bush's reign. Some notables said to appear prominently on the list are filmmaker, Michael Moore, outspoken Senator, Barbara Boxer, and news bloggers behind the sites, Daily Kos and Wonkette.

Describing the methods behind the Bush team philosophy, an unnamed White House aide says: "If you want to know who’s sleeping with whom, who drinks too much or has a fondness for nose candy, this is the place to find it. Karl (Rove) operates under the rule that if you fuck with us, we’ll f*ck you over."

Karl Rove, Bush's chief political operative, is said to have begun the list while working on George W. Bush's gubernatorial run in Texas and was dramatically expanded following the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. Rove allegedly made use of the FBI's "national security letters" to garner private information on perceived foes. The letters allow the FBI to intercept phone, financial, and internet records without the subjects knowledge, or judicial oversight. The letters are routinely sent to employers, banks, and other sources deemed likely to possess personal data. Those contacted are forbidden, on pain of prosecution, from informing individuals targeted.

Commenting on the list, a White House staffer said: "We’re talking about Big Brother at its most extreme. We know things about people that their spouses don’t know and, if it becomes politically expedient, we will make sure the rest of the world knows."

The White House has so far refused comment on the list.

Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News and hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program that is no friend of the Bush administration. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Friday, November 11, 2005

PEJ News - C.L. Cook - In a little more than a half-hour from time of writing, across Canada gathered citizens will bow their heads for a moment's remembrance of those fallen in the wars of the 20th century. Here, we used to call it Armistice Day, and the remembrance was originally meant as a warning to the would-be victims of future military adventurism that the peace MUST be recalled and protected: "Lest We Forget."

www.pej.org

Torture Planet: Canada's ComplicityC.L. Cook

PEJ NewsNovember 11, 2005

But, today the admonition is a forgotten message, subsumed by flags, cannonades and firing squads. Today, Canada is a fully paid member of the new world war, George W. Bush's so-called "War on Terror." Canadian soldiers ship out over there to Afghanistan and Haiti and Iraq. Canadian sailors patrol the trade routes for the loot senior partner America extracts from the battlegrounds, while Canadian death squads, in the form of the secretive JTF2, and spooks assist the great "Project" promised to last a century.

In Ottawa, quisling politicos too are doing the bidding of their D.C. masters, aiding and abetting the illegal transport of prisoners from this country into the hands of America's burgeoning torture centres around the globe.

On November 9th, two days before the masses were beckoned out to again "remember," the United Nations issues a blistering condemnation of several nations taking part in what they term the "outsourcing of torture," and to our collective shame Canada's name appeared prominently alongside bastions of freedom and liberty Uzbekistan, Syria, Algeria, and Egypt. Fine company to be now keeping for the country once known for peacekeeping.

The U.N.'s accusations come in the wake of a 15 page report, 'Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment' presented to the General Assembly detailing the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency's global gulags. Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture says: "Several governments, in the fight against terrorism, have transferred or proposed to return alleged terrorist suspects to countries where they may be at risk of torture or ill-treatment."

This runs counter to international law, as Article 3 of the United Nations' Convention Against Torture clearly states: "No State party shall expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be [in] danger of being subjected to torture."

How countries like Canada, the United States, and even gentle Sweden have circumvented the precisely worded prohibition is through the agency of "diplomatic assurances" and "formal guarantees" from "host" nations. These assurances coming from some of the most dispicable regimes on the planet are merely a wink and nod, understood by all to be absolutely meaningless. As Nowak says: "[D]iplomatic assurances are unreliable and ineffective in the protection against torture and ill-treatment and such assurances are sought usually from States where the practice of torture is systematic." Adding: these "assurances" have no standing in law and therefore: "they carry no legal effect and no accountability, if breached, and the person whom the assurances aim to protect has no recourse if the assurances are violated."

In George W. Bush's America this process has been formalized and granted the euphemism, "extraordinary rendition." But that sobriquet is misleading as the extraordinary becomes commonplace, as Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois describes the "reprehensive policy known euphemistically as 'extraordinary renditions'" that involve both the "enforced disappearances of persons" and torture, as "widespread" and "systematic." Citing Article 7 of the Rome Statute for the International Court, Boyle says this constitutes a "crime against humanity."

Boyle believes these crimes should be prosecuted, if not in the current political climate, at a future date (he notes these transgressions have no "statute of limitation") and all those taking part in this process, including White House legal counsel "legitimizing" these actions, should too stand in the dock, saying: "[A]ll Bush Jr. administration lawyers at the White House, the Department of Justice, and the CIA, inter alia, who signed off on 'extraordinary renditions' must also be prosecuted for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, enforced disappearances, murder, and kidnapping."

So here we have Canada's Prime Minister, and the scions of our legal system criminals, serving an illegal, immoral, and indefensible policy of torture and murder in our names, today soberly laying wreaths to the lost generations of the past, while promising more of the same for the future.

Remembrance be damned!

Chris Cook is a contributing editor to PEJ News. He also hosts Gorilla Radio, a weekly public affairs program, broad/webcast from the University of Victoria, Canada. You can check out the GR Blog here.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Sgt. Kelly Dougherty went to Iraq in 2003, doubting that the war was just. She returned in 2004, certain it was wrong, and co-founded Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Sgt. Kelly Dougherty joined over 3,000 at a Fayetteville, North Carolina rally to mark two years of war and occupation in Iraq, March 19, 2005. (Photo by Jeff Paterson)

"People say you are a traitor. People say you are unpatriotic," said Dougherty, 27, about her anti-war work. "We are doing this because we feel strongly about America.

"I really appreciate America, but we are capable of doing some very bad things."

Dougherty was stationed near Nazaria in southern Iraq for 10 months with the Colorado National Guard's 220th Military Police Co. She saw action but never fired her weapon.

Dougherty said the thousands of innocent civilians who have been killed and the broken American promises about repairing water, electricity and sewage systems convinced her the troops should come home.

The faces of Iraqi civilians mirrored her growing doubts.

"At first, the Iraqis smiled and waved, but at the end of my 10 months there, they'd turn away or make rude gestures," Dougherty said.

After she came home in February 2004, and left the Guard after eight years with an honorable discharge, Dougherty embarked on a new mission.

She put her life and income on hold to talk to college students, high school classes and community groups across the country.

"The war in Iraq is not about protecting this country. The war is about aggression," said Dougherty, who doesn't receive a salary for her work against the war.

At Regis College in Denver recently with the Wheels of Justice Tour, Dougherty said her unit was often ordered to burn broken-down civilian contractor trucks loaded with supplies rather than allow the impoverished Iraqis to loot them for the water, food, fuel and vehicle parts that could be sold.

"Most of us wanted to help the Iraqi people, but the only good we could do was give kids candy," she told six Regis students who gathered on a warm fall afternoon to listen to her. "That's not what they need. They need clean water and security."

The worst events she experienced involved civilians, including children, hit by contractor convoys that thundered along rural roads under orders to never stop.

"I wasn't protecting America. I was protecting Halliburton trucks going to military bases," she said.

Dougherty said her MP unit provided security for investigators at rural crash scenes, including a fatality where a military convoy killed a boy.

"The family was there. An older relative fell to his knees and collapsed on the ground. There was nothing they could do," she said.

Dougherty said she had hoped that American troops would help rebuild power plants, water systems and schools, but the only construction she saw was at military bases.

"From what I saw, we just created more chaos and violence," she said. "I became less and less convinced that we were there for a good purpose."

The rebuilding effort is the subject of a new report by the special inspector general for Iraq. While noting problems in the $30 billion U.S.-financed effort, the report also cited "steady progress" in parts of the program, despite what was described as "the hazardous security environment, the fluid political situation and the harsh realities of working in a war zone," according to a story in a recent Sunday edition of the New York Times.

Unlikely soldier

Dougherty, whose parents divorced when she was a child, grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Canon City. She was a good student who asked questions.

When she graduated from high school in 1996, she knew two things: that she wanted to go to college and that her parents couldn't afford to send her.

Her stepfather, Army veteran Jim Brenner, suggested she sign up for the National Guard for the college benefits.

Her father, Sean Dougherty, a Vietnam veteran, argued against it.

Nevertheless, Dougherty enlisted, along with her best friend, Elizabeth Spradlin, in the Colorado National Guard in Pueblo.

Her once-a-month service as a medic meshed with her classes at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. A biology major, she wants to work in health services.

She was deployed to Hungary for eight months in 1999 as an MP to escort troops to Bosnia. She was activated again as an MP in January 2003 for duty in Iraq.

"Before I went, I told an officer that I had reservations because Iraq wasn't behind the 9/11 attack," she said. "The officer said he had reservations, too."

That night, however, the officer told the platoon that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attack and that the country needed to strike back, Dougherty said.

"Our leader was misleading us," she said.

Her unit first went to Kuwait, where they huddled in a bunker for two days as alarms signaled incoming Scud missiles fired by the Iraqis.

"We were in full protective gear because we were told the missiles had chemical and biological weapons," Dougherty said.

The soldiers again were misled, she said. The U.S. later said the Iraqis didn't have biological or chemical agents or weapons of mass destruction.

On the anti-war trail

At high schools across the country and especially in Colorado Springs, Colorado's military hub, Dougherty tells students to look at grants and other sources of tuition help rather than the military.

"I tell them to take what the military recruiters say with a grain of salt," she said. "I tell them there are other options."

Dougherty, who wants to get a master's degree in public health, said most of the audiences she's talked to since July 2004 have been small and usually already agree with her stand.

But the Iraq Veterans Against the War itself has grown from Dougherty and her six-cofounders to 300 today. National polls show dwindling support for the war as well.

She's found she's a frequent target of pro-war tirades on blogs. Dougherty said she enjoys her discussions during speaking engagements with Iraq veterans who disagree with her.

"I say that I support them and my experience was different than theirs," she said.

Dougherty said she and her stepfather don't discuss her anti-war activities, but her father has become active in the movement.

At North Presbyterian Church in Denver recently, more than 75 people -- the group's largest audience of the week -- listened to Dougherty and two other Iraq veterans relate their experiences.

"There was a poll in Europe, rating the most dangerous countries. America was rated as the most dangerous," Dougherty told the gathering.

One of the audience members, Matt Walsh, 25, said he hadn't heard about the large civilian losses or the lack of water and food that had turned many of the Iraqi people against the U.S.

"I don't know anyone who's in Iraq," said Walsh, who graduated from college this year. "It could have been me that signed up to go to Iraq."

The audience gave Dougherty and the other vets a standing ovation.

"I came to find out from the ranks what has really gone on in Iraq," said John Addison, an Army veteran who was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War. "I was impressed with what these soldiers had to say," he said.

Not all agree

During her talk, Dougherty said her few encounters with Iraqis, especially with the women, confirmed her belief that Iraqis are good people.

"It made me wish all the more that I was there in a different capacity than being part of the military," she said.

Jeff Chapman, a deacon at the church who wore an American flag tie and an American flag pin on his jacket lapel, listened, but disagreed.

"I feel more people would die here, in this country, if we didn't fight the Iraqi terrorists there," said Chapman, an Air Force veteran.

"But what these people are doing is great," he said. "I fought for their right to say these things."

Waning Blair: Not the End of the Beginning, But the Beginning of the End

PEJ News - C. L. Cook - Tony Blair's lame pronouncement on losing New Labour's first House of Commons vote in more than eight years sums up both his myopic world view, and his moral bankruptcy. With a somewhat less than stiff upper lip, Tony imparted this: "Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing."

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http://www.allhatnocattle.net/bush%20blair%20leash.jpg

Waning Blair: Not the End of the Beginning,But the Beginning of the EndC. L. Cook

PEJ NewsNovember 9, 2005

The right thing in question was his government's attempt to further strengthen what many already see as Britain's draconian "anti-terror" laws. Blair tabled legislation to extend the period the state can hold "terror suspects" in detention without trial or representation to 90 days. The House's rejection did not go so far as to repeal the nullification of Habeas Corpus, a power Blair's government previously granted itself, instead limiting the length of such detentions to 28 days. But, Blair's defeat is more significant than a single reversal, it signals the defection of Labour party members, effectively ending Blair's majority rule in parliament.

Undaunted, today Blair chided not only his own turncoat MP's, but the House as a whole, saying the thumbs down on his proposed legislation signalled a "worrying gap" between dissenting members and the public will. Defying irony, Blair's criticism denies his own massive loss of credibility among British voters.

Blair never recovered from the so-called "Downing Street Memos" (DSM) scandal that broke as front page news in Britain earlier this year. The memos of 2002 meetings held in the run-up to the Iraq invasion record British intelligence's extreme scepticism about reports of Saddam Hussein's ability to threaten either his neighbours or the U.K., suggesting the file was exaggerated to support the American determination to topple Iraq's government.

Opposition leader, Michael Howard used the loss in the House to again call for the Prime Minister's resignation, while "rebel" Labour MP, Paul Flynn warned back-benchers would not play Blair's "poodles," a not so subtle reference to Blair sobriquet "Bush's Poodle."

Despite the limiting of Blair's initiative, an amended version of the bill finally passed has Muslim in Britain expressing concern. They worry that the proposed banning of religious organizations and clamping down on Muslim websites and publications effect media freedoms and could prove further fuel for resentments and serve to push fanatical organizations underground.

A working group of Muslim experts simultaneously released the finding of their months long study of the July 7th tube bombings in London, saying British foreign policy was a "key contributory factor" to that act of terrorism and possible future attacks within England.

Party loyalists are playing down Blair's reversal, saying it's a "one-off," but with controversial policy bills on welfare, private pensions, and healthcare due to be read in the House in the new year, Blair will have a busy Christmas trying to bring his party to heel.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Concerned citizen and legal activist, Katherine Hughes and the strange case of the Good Doctor, Rafil Dhafir.

And; Janine Bandcroft, bringing us up to speed with all the good things to do in and around Victoria this coming week.

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Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, 104.3 cable, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca He also serves as a contributing editor at the progressive web news site: http://www.pej.org.

There are encouraging signs that the criminal enterprise, known also as the Bush administration is, after fully five years of free reign being called to account for its myriad transgressions. The Grand Jury investigation into the Valerie Plame affair has, many believe, all the elements necessary to bring down George W. Bush, but is there the political will in America to carry it through?

Russ Baker is an award-winning, unabashed muckraking investigative journalist whose work has appeared across the media spectrum. He is a co-founder of MediaBistro, a website serving as a bridge between journalists and “new media” professionals. His latest endeavour is The Real News Project, which he describes as a “media production shop for groundbreaking, transformative, independent investigative journalism.

Russ Baker in the first half.

And; far-reaching laws enacted in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in the U.S. have allowed for all manner of state excess. None have felt the sting of these laws more acutely than America’s Muslim community: imprisonment without due process, so-called “extraordinary rendition,” and broadened powers of search and seizure have combined to create a climate of fear for many Americans. But none of these is more disturbing than the “case” against Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir. Last month, after serving nearly three years in federal custody, Dr. Dhafir was sentenced to 22 years in prison: his crime; sending humanitarian aid to Iraq.

Katherine Hughes is a Syracuse, New York potter and student who followed the prosecution of the local doctor, Rafil Dhafir, and says she became so concerned with the ramifications of it held for civil liberties she took a hiatus from her studies to look more deeply into the case than the local media was willing to.

Katherine Hughes and the United States v. Rafil A. Dhafir in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here to bring us up to speed on all that’s good to do in and around Victoria this week.

But first, Russ Baker and testing the media’s mettle.

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the mainstream media.